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Topic: Pronounciation (Read 222787 times)

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

Leuchtenberg (semi-royal French-Bavarian-Russian ducal dynasty) really is a name with a lot of different pronunciations!

The original German prounciation is of course ['lɔɪ̯çtənbɛrk]. The Russians write it Лейхтенберг and thus pronounce it /leixtenberg/.How do the French pronounce it? /lœʃtenberg/?

Today I heard yet another pronunciation. In a TV interview about the restored and re-opened Oscarshall Castle in Oslo, which was built by King Oscar I and Queen Josephine of Leuchtenberg, Queen Sonja pronounced her predecessor's "last name" as /'leiktenberg/!

I'm living near Schleswig and I also pronounce it "Gottorf" with a short o.

Funny that you who live there say Gottorf, while all we foreigners say Gottorp!

Maybe that's because in old German spelling "ph" was pronounced like "f". The official web page is also using "Gottorf": http://www.schloss-gottorf.de/ (there is a mistake: it should be "Schloss" not "Schloß").

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

Wikipedia has a great phonetic transcritpion of Nicholas's full name in Russian: [ nʲ ɪ k ɐ ˈl a j ə lʲ ɪ k ˈs a n d r ə vʲ ɪ ʨ r ɐ ˈm a n ə f ]Too bad there aren't phonetic transcriptions of AOTMAA's names. Am I right in assuming that OTMA's patronymic is pronounced [ nʲ ɪ k ɐ ˈl a j ə v n ə ]? Or should some part of the -evna also be palatalized?

Speaking of palatalisation, it hadn't dawned on me untill now that the last sound in "tsar", царь, is actually pronounced palatalized, as [ ts a rʲ ]. But that is of course why the soft sign, ь, is there!

Am I right in assuming that OTMA's patronymic is pronounced [ nʲ ɪ k ɐ ˈl a j ə v n ə ]? Or should some part of the -evna also be palatalized?

The most correct pronunciation - according to what I have heard in TV documentaries and movies on them.

Quote

Speaking of palatalisation, it hadn't dawned on me untill now that the last sound in "tsar", царь, is actually pronounced palatalized, as [ ts a rʲ ]. But that is of course why the soft sign, ь, is there!

Exactly! It is soft letter that makes word sounding soft and not so loud. It is mixed with other letter while saying the word.

I think it depends whether the English speaker has learned German or not.

Having done German, I say Sakser- (I hadn't appreciated it was actually French). However, the Marquis de Saxe, as a Frenchman, is Sax to my ears.

It is French. As I am sure you know, it's Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha in German. Sachse (pronounced /'sakse/) means (a) "Saxon" in German.

Well, as long as one avoids Säxy-Cowburg-Gotcha.....:-)

I now have it on good authority from a native French speaker that a liaison can only link a consonant to a vowel and not the other way around, and that Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha is pronounced /saks.ko.bur.go.ta/ in French. (Only in Marseillais-accented French would one read it /sak.se.co.bur.go.ta/.) And that in (Upper) Saxon, Sachsen is Sachs'n with the final n retained. (N-dropping in final -en turns out to be a very Rhenian phenomena, from Bade_ via Hesse_ to Vlaandere_!)

So I don't understand where some of the English-speaking commentators in royalty documentaries get their pronunciatioon from? Perhaps Dutch!? :-) Does anybody know how the royals themselves pronounce(d) it?

toscany

I now have it on good authority from a native French speaker that a liaison can only link a consonant to a vowel and not the other way around, and that Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha is pronounced /saks.ko.bur.go.ta/ in French. (Only in Marseillais-accented French would one read it /sak.se.co.bur.go.ta/.) And that in (Upper) Saxon, Sachsen is Sachs'n with the final n retained. (N-dropping in final -en turns out to be a very Rhenian phenomena, from Bade_ via Hesse_ to Vlaandere_!)

So I don't understand where some of the English-speaking commentators in royalty documentaries get their pronunciatioon from? Perhaps Dutch!? :-)

Does anybody know how the royals themselves pronounce(d) it?[/quote]

It sound like you have the right pronunciation covered well, FP. If there is a Belgian or someone that still speaks high German on here, may be they would give a bit more detail.

The English speaking commentators are going to use the appropriate English translation of the names, noting a British historian - pronouncing every vowel, etc.